Wild blue yonder

By Paul Reidinger

TO SAY THAT Oxygen Bar (which recently added a sushi and sake lounge to its portfolio of delights, and its name) has atmosphere is to put the case with heroic circumspection. Oxygen Bar is atmosphere, quite literally; from its sky-blue walls pop plastic tubes from which various interesting and eclectic people arrayed on low vinyl sofas take the heavily oxygenated, recreative airs, while a tall drag queen ushers the famished to a sushi bar at the rear. There is a certain 1970s, sci-fi cheesiness to the scene; is Oxygen related to that curious bar with the dancing humanoids in the original Star Wars, or could it be part of a set from some unknown, unshown Star Trek episode? Or is Oxygen a glimpse of some hipster nursing home, a place where intubation is not inconsistent with style?

Sushi, befitting its origins as fast Japanese street food, is proving, like the coyote, to be very adaptable to urban environments. (Both the Voodoo Lounge, a dank music hall, and Café Abir, a boho coffeehouse, have associated sushi operations; at the latter you can enjoy your maguro, and your dreams of fugu, in the shadow of a huge coffee roaster.) At Oxygen, the menu reflects the goofy-cool sensibility of consulting chef Gerard Dumuk, who made something of a splash a few years ago by launching Midori Mushi in the confines of a cheap Civic Center motel. (Another bit of proof, incidentally, of sushi's adaptability.)

If Oxygen's setting isn't quite that campy, it's still exotic enough to condition expectations for such vividly christened treats as demon tears ($6.25), a kind of mega-spicy tuna roll the young sushi chef cautioned us about when we ordered it.

"It's got habañero chili sauce," he said. "It's really hot."

He spoke the truth: It was hot, so hot that the capsicum blast largely obliterated our sense of the other ingredients, from the fish to the green onions and shiso nestled with it inside to the salmon roe sprinkled on top. It was, let's be honest, too hot, even though he'd made it at reduced strength. Habañero has a long half-life; our mouths burned and throbbed for some minutes after the last stubby rice cylinder had disappeared, though frantic draughts from a large goblet of Stella Artois on tap ($5) did quench the flames a bit.

Still, we weren't at all discouraged. For one thing, the conventional items, including a milky miso soup and a seaweed salad flecked with plenty of sesame seeds (both $3.25), were mild and refreshing, as was an intermezzo of simple tuna rolls, one of red and one of white ($4.25 each). For another, the rest of the signature preparations, mostly but not exclusively grand rolls, managed to be inventive and tasty without becoming unpleasantly eccentric.

My companion wasn't too keen on the diamond rose roll ($7.25), mainly because of the sweetness of fuji apple. I thought the apple made a potent, if odd, counterpoint to the bite of green garlic and ginger, with chunks of hamachi serving as a kind of buffer – soft, even-tempered, absorbent. But we both liked the dragon reborn ($12; one of the menu's "big ass" rolls), a festival of tuna, baked shrimp, and mango chunks, with unagi and avocado thrown in for extra richness; and, on a subsequent visit, we eagerly gobbled down the sticky secrets ($6), a pair of tofu rings stuffed with crab meat and sticky rice.

Sushi devotees, having overcome the proscription against eating uncooked flesh, do not, in my experience, spend a great deal of time looking back in anxiety. No food is entirely without risk, after all. Still, there are health issues associated with eating raw fish; they are less extreme, certainly, but more widespread than the prospect of dropping dead from a tainted bite of fugu. One prudent course is to steer clear of fish, such as salmon, that migrate to (often polluted) fresh water to spawn.

More drastic is the complete avoidance of raw fish. Yet vegetarianism need not ruin one's experience of sushi bars, at least not at Oxygen. The menu offers a fair selection of fleshless choices, one of the most spectacular of which is the real raw hand roll ($7.25), a broad leaf of chard wrapped around a medley of napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, avocado, basil, and shiso-marinated carrots and zucchini. Even sliced, it is a little unwieldy to eat, but the dribs and drabs that plop onto the plate can be easily snapped up with chopsticks – or fingers, if no one is looking.

In keeping with a general theme of healthfulness and rejuvenation, a quite decadent dessert is called the "Island of Sanity" ($6.25). The name suggests something tropical, perhaps with pineapple or mango, but the reality is a disk of chocolate ganache, infused with lavender and mounted on a crust of mascarpone cocoa cream. It is, then, in essence, a fancy little chocolate cake, just the right size for two. And when you've finished, you can still breathe.